Storage pricing hit by Japanese production issues

By Sofia Mitra-Thakur

Published Thursday, March 24, 2011

Prices for hard drives and other storage solutions are set to soar following the Japan crisis.

Origin Storage advises IT users to plan ahead for their storage needs as component shortages are predicted for the immediate future, leading to higher prices of magnetic sub-strata and other components of hard drives.

"We are already seeing major corporates advancing their storage purchases as they plan ahead for rising prices in the face of a possible hard drive shortage," said managing director Andy Cordial.

"This could also push up the price of solid state drives (SSDs) as whilst prices of SSDs have been falling steadily over the last 24 months and capacities have risen, we fully expect to see higher-capacity SSDs being scooped up for their speed of access and greater tolerance to shocks."

TDK, SFD and Kobe Steel which supply the magnetic sub-strata of hard drives have reported production plant issues as their facilities are based in the disaster-stricken areas.

Many other HDD makers say their facilities have been damaged and even shut down by the quake, which will have a massive impact on the worldwide supply of HDDs and HDD components as Japan-based companies have a large stake in the supply chain.

However Cordial says that the good news for the UK is that there should be enough stocks of both hard drives and SSDs in its sale channel to last until the third quarter of 2011.

"All of this means that the big four hard drive players - Samsung, Seagate, Toshiba and Western Digital/Hitachi - will see their component prices rise in the short term, a situation that translates to higher prices and stock shortages at the sharp end," he said.